Before Angela DiFabio bought her Mini Cooper last September, she'd been dreaming about it for a year. The Philadelphia-based Accenture consultant spent untold hours on the company's Web site, playing with dozens of possibilities before coming up with the perfect combination: A chili-pepper-red exterior, white racing stripes on the hood, and a "custom rally badge bar" on the grill.

When DiFabio placed her order with her dealer, the same build-your-own tool -- and all the price and product details it provided -- left her feeling like she was getting a fair deal. "He even used the site to order my car," she says. "That made me feel like I was getting the same information that he was, that I wasn't missing something."

While she waited for her Mini to arrive, DiFabio logged on to Mini's Web site every day, this time using its "Where's My Baby?" tracking tool to follow her car, like an expensive FedEx package, from the factory in Britain to its delivery. "I think most places you go to for a car, if you order one it's just a big black hole," says DiFabio. "To be able to check the process made the wait exciting. It definitely gave me a feeling of control in the process."

Being in control. Not missing anything. Making the wait, if there must be one, exciting. It's how every customer wants the service experience to be. And it's what Mini USA -- whose customers must usually wait two to three months for their cars -- is using technology to do. The Web site does more than just provide information or sell products or services. It keeps customers engaged, and when they're more engaged, they're usually happier, too. "Our ultimate goal was to make waiting fun," says Kerri Martin, Mini USA's marketing manager.

It's not that Mini's technology is groundbreaking. Rather, it makes an impact on the customer experience because of how it's integrated with the brand: It's fun, it's individual, it makes users feel like part of the clan. Many car Web sites have build-your-own tools, but few are as customizable as Mini's, where the choices are endless and the onscreen car image changes to your specifications. The tracking service, which is fairly unusual, acknowledges and soothes customers' anxiety and impatience -- and perhaps stretches the nervous-parent metaphor a bit. In the "scheduled for production" phase, for example, the tracking tool assures them that their Mini "will begin to move through the 'birth canal' at our Oxford plant. . . . Rest well knowing that your baby is in the best of hands."

The challenge for Mini is meeting the high expectations of such eager customers. Critics note that some dealerships aren't as integrated with their Web site as they should be. And when expectant Mini owners, who it turns out are a pretty fretful bunch, found a way to track their cars through independent shipping companies, some customers were upset that Mini's tool wasn't updated as quickly as the information they were finding on their own. To try to adjust these customers' expectations, Mini added an online video that explains everything that has to happen in the port and why its online tool might be slower than the independent data. It hasn't appeased everyone, but it has helped soothe some anxiety.